Page 3163 - Week 10 - Thursday, 18 October 2007
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kids irrespective of whether they go to a government school or a non-government school. The children of the ACT are being let down by the fact that this minister had an opportunity yesterday to admit that he had made a mistake in cutting at least 21 teachers out of the government college system, and he failed to take that opportunity. While ever we fail to recognise our mistakes and do something about them, our children will suffer. All the posturing about collaboration from Mr Gentleman will amount to nothing.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.29): It is interesting that I agree with so much of what Mrs Dunne says in relation to ACT education, but I am bound to disagree with her about federal collaboration. The federal government’s control of education funding does not give it control of education as a whole. Unfortunately, the historical fact that only the federal government is allowed to collect taxes puts the state and commonwealth in the position of being adversaries. The Greens maintain that they should be partners in the provision of education. If the Labor Party wins the federal election, it will be very interesting to see whether the longstanding conflict between the commonwealth and states is a party political matter or more a level of government conflict. I hope that I get the chance to observe this and to see if the conversations in this place change.
The federal government is taking another tack. It wants ideological control of the content and delivery of education in government schools, although it seems quite happy to let independent schools go their own way. The ACT government, though, has a chequered history of collaborating with teachers and non-government parties on education matters. The curriculum renewal project shows an admirable commitment to involving teachers, departments and the community in curriculum decisions. However, as noted by the Australian Education Union ACT branch in their budget submission, there have been funding cuts to the Department of Education and Training curriculum area.
Consultation on the closure of schools and the use of school sites has been debated in this Assembly repeatedly and is an example of the ACT government making decisions seemingly with little thought to comprehensive collaboration with the broader community. However, we are not here to debate how the ACT government has accomplished or failed to collaborate on matters of education, although we can hardly help commenting on them. We are here to discuss the importance of collaboration, particularly with regard to the federal government’s lack of negotiation on funding matters.
In recent media releases, both the national Greens and the Australian Educational Union made reference to Australia’s poor placing in the OECD rankings for expenditure on public education. I suggest that the federal government has some role in this, especially as it keeps talking about the budget surplus and the booming economy. Instead of addressing this problem by giving more money to public schools, it is attempting to use the opportunity to use funding to take more control of the public school system.
We have seen multiple attempts by the Liberal government to dictate changes to the public school system. These include tying funds, ensuring that every school has a flagpole—with the Australian flag on it, of course—making repeated calls for a
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